THE ILLUSION OF "TRUTH"

In his legend of the Grand Inquisitor from The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky brings Jesus back to 16th century Seville during the period of the Spanish Inquisition. The Inquisitor interviews him and says that the Church has corrected his work, which gave too much freedom and responsibility to individuals; more than they could bear. The Church has taken over this responsibility and provided the certainty that does not exist in a state of radical freedom. If Jesus insists on restating his original message, then there will be no alternative to burning him at the stake. The quest for the historical Jesus goes back to the mid-19th century, and even Albert Schweitzer's book of that name came out in 1905. In this brilliant and liberating book, Thomas Daniel Nehrer proposes a new re-visioning of Jesus in the light of a more universal understanding of consciousness and reality. It combines a summary of biblical scholarship with a re-creation of the narrative of Jesus's life and an overall contextualisation of his message and its enduring relevance to our time. Perhaps his most startling starting point, and one that becomes evident to the reader, is that the disciples themselves did not really understand what Jesus was talking about.

The mythical overlay of the Christ of faith was elaborated from Paul and famously characterised by Bernard Shaw as Crosstianity. Scholars reconstruct the historical Jesus from various sources, but Nehrer maintains that Jesus was really a grounded mystic 'aware of Reality and its integrated functionality with the Consciousness that experiences it' and explained in terms of the Kingdom within, illustrated in so many parables. Visionaries are people who understand life from the inside and try to communicate this understanding either by analogies or by indicating how to achieve such an awareness. At the beginning of the book, Nehrer coins a new word – noncept - for something that does not really exist but is nevertheless formulated as if it referred to a real thing. Outgrowing fallacies based on noncepts entails shedding the illusion of Truth referred to in the title.

The author begins by explaining the context and background of Jesus's life freed from mythical accretion. Much of this will be familiar to readers with a philosophical and theological background, but it is very well summarised and expressed within the overall context of understanding how life works from the inside out. The setting is historical, cultural and philosophical, and it is important to understand how the ancients actually thought, for instance in terms of the causal influence of gods and spirits. There was a general climate of fear and helplessness within a strong traditional framework where women were very much in a secondary position. There has been a general move away from reliance on revelation towards reason and empiricism, but it is important to remember that this too is a limited mindset. Behind this is a genuine connection with Oneness and a realisation of the interconnectedness of life and consciousness.

The next chapter scrutinises the sources of our understanding of Jesus in the Gospels and letters of Paul. Nehrer analyses caveats to gospel authority under two headings: literary/compositional issues and rational caveats, with eight in each category. These are explored, referenced and then clearly summarised in key sentences. Under the first category we have conjectures based on unverifiable sources, anonymous authors, false attribution, persuasive or evangelical interpretations, interpolations as well as copying errors, and distortions and biases in translation. In addition, we have incorrect historical and geographical references, creative fictions, irreconcilable conflicts between different gospels - both synoptics and John - as well as inconsistencies between the accounts; then claims of prognostication and messianic prophecies, many retroactively fitted into gospel accounts in order to exaggerate the powers of Jesus. There are clearly different kinds of miracle, and the author shares the view of Tolstoy that these are impossible, whether it refers to walking on water or healing episodes that have in fact been replicated in other eras. In short, this section questions the reliability and veracity of the Gospels and summarises the case made by many previous scholars that explodes any notion of literal interpretation or divine inerrancy.

The next 200 pages recreate Jesus's life in a vivid narrative based on the author's understanding of reality as well as his scholarly insights. For him, Consciousness is what exists and it is qualitative as well as unbounded. We are all individualisations of this one principle and interpret reality from our own cultural and temperamental viewpoints. He uses as a basis the actions and capabilities we know about as well as an understanding of Jesus's character and philosophy. In this way he recreates potential travels and adventures as well as dialogues, sermons and discourses. These include discussions about Greek philosophy, jobs characteristic of his trade and a powerful questioning of authority and tradition. The Kingdom within forms the basis of his message as well as an attitude of trust in life. The Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount are evocatively recreated and it becomes clear, as mentioned earlier, that the disciples do not understand the essence of his message. The Transfiguration is given a not entirely convincing naturalistic explanation as there are other records of people being seen in their light bodies rather than just physically. For the high priests, Jesus is a political as well as a theological threat, and Nehrer interprets the role of Judas as bringing a group of them to talk to him privately in the hope that some form of resolution can be achieved. Jesus is presented as trusting that everything will work out in the end, especially as his message is one of peace. The trial and crucifixion is dramatically presented and Jesus's agony graphically evoked with his last words of being forsaken as one who trusted in a positive outcome.

The last two chapters clarify the message of the Kingdom and explain how theology has evolved on a series of false premises. Any appearances by Jesus after his death are interpreted as dreams, when they may well have been genuine apparitions and communications. Nehrer's central proposition is that Jesus exemplified what he calls Integrated Awareness, which is difficult to communicate fully to those who do not share it. He lists a number of indicators, with scriptural references, including the need to clear away old notions, the fact that new awareness cannot be fitted into old thinking, the reflection of the inner in the outer, reality as one rather than dual (hence the importance of loving one's enemies), and the direct impact of the mind-body connection. Some of these features are also to be found clearly in the Gospel of Thomas.

The core of the Christian message is peace, forgiveness, love and trust, which we see in the lives of holy people and saints of all traditions. Nehrer explains how this all went off course and resulted in institutional violence and inquisition – a terrible caricature of Jesus. The Church became precisely the kind of authoritarian structure that Jesus himself abhorred. This takes us back to the legend of the grand Inquisitor mentioned at the outset. The author could also have added the parallels between dying in resurrecting corn gods in other Middle Eastern cultures as part of the Superman myth that Jesus became. The Christianity that we know owes a great deal more to the theology and experiences of Paul (even though he too stresses the importance of love) rather than the original disciples, and Nehrer elegantly summarises the Christian 'Truth' in a series of propositions that are in fact mental constructs or systematic belief systems. One can say the same of secular ideologies, which have resulted in similar abuses.

Nehrer adds his own version of the good news: we are in fact powerful conscious creators living a cycle of existences; our challenges come from within and can in fact to be understood and eliminated when we realise how we have projected these on the outside. We do in fact have a direct connection to the Consciousness that generates all the effects and we 'enter the Kingdom of Heaven when we see that innate correlation between Self and Reality.' Readers may not entirely share this view, but it is a liberating one. Nehrer advocates moving beyond both conventional religion and analytical philosophies that are substitutions for direct perception of what is. With Pope Francis, there are signs of a renewal from within and a return to the message that Jesus embodied, and each of us can contribute our own prophetic embodiment of key spiritual principles such as love, wisdom and truth. The book is a powerful statement of a mystical philosophy of liberation beyond liberation theology and deserves a wide readership.